From the minute you start playing Speed Kings it is obvious that Acclaim have attempted to create an innovative and adrenaline pumped arcade-racing game. To get a better idea of what it's all about, think of taking the bikes and in-race combat from the classic Road Rash, and put them into the street racing of Burnout. Indeed, it does sound like a great concept, but sadly Speed Kings has more than its fair share of flaws.
Speed Kings consists of the usual game modes that you would expect. Single Race and Time Attack are fairly straightforward. More interesting is the Trick Attack mode. As you hammer it through the 18 city-based tracks, attempting to dodge incoming traffic, you have a few 'tricks' up your sleeve. Pressing different combinations of buttons and movements of the analogue stick will allow the rider to perform tricks on the motorbike itself. Ranging from 'surfing to bike' to a handstand, Speed Kings also features the ability to lower the bike horizontally to skim under any obstacles that are in your way. This may include a truck driving through an intersection or a crane lifting materials over the road.
The benefit of doing tricks is not only a good laugh, but also to boost your power band bar. Riding dangerously through traffic and pulling off ridiculous tricks slowly fills the bar. Once full, you'll have a power band at your disposal. A simple press of the R2 button will send your bike into a short turbo boost, which displays a rather nice blur effect giving you a sense that you're going faster that you can handle.
As you would expect, most of the bikes and tracks need to be unlocked in order to play them. This is where the Meet mode comes in. Each Meet consists of 3 races, score a certain amount of points and you will unlock the next Meet, which is based in the next level.
The game has a decent count of motorbikes. But sadly, they aren't officially licensed by the real manufacturers. Although, it isn't hard to see that most of the bikes are based on real models.
For an arcade game, the races are drag on way too long. After around one lap, you'll probably find yourself just playing around with the trick system and ending up throwing the race away. The tracks also seem a little basic. When riding down one of the many straights, the bike will hit its maximum speed. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem all that fast.
Visually, Speed Kings isn't anything special. The bikes themselves have very little texture and look just plain boring. At the bike selection screen, it's a matter of completely ignoring what they look like, but which has the highest statistics bars, as the bad quality models really do turn you away. The games environments aren't exactly eye candy either, but if you're going slow enough to pay attention to buildings around you, this isn't the game for you in the first place. On a positive note, the crashes between you and other vehicles is nice. When slamming into the rear of a car, your bike will be sent flying down the road as the entire front end is destroyed into a thousand pieces. This is shown through a Burnout style replay feature, before re-spawning you into the race again.
Speed Kings runs fairly smooth, apart from a few slowdown issues when all 6 racers plow into a large vehicle crossing the road. A 60hz mode is available for those of you with compatible televisions, but for some reason once you choose your video setting, it isn't saved. This means every time you boot the game you are forced to take a 60hz television test. It's a small problem, but one that just shouldn't exist.
In the audio department, there isn't really much to say. The engine sounds are very basic and don't give you the feeling you're actually riding the bike, by-passing car horns sound like a dogs squeaky chew toy and the music is repetitive, anti-climatic and boring. This is disappointing for a game that prides itself in being an adrenaline pumped experience.
As with most racing games, the life span depends on how long your attention span is. If you get sick of doing the same old races over and over again, then Speed Kings will probably be gathering dust after one night of play. From the beginning, only one track is available, so a fair amount of work is required to unlock all 18 tracks. A multiplayer mode has been included, with the same modes as single player plus a Tag mode. A sort of DVD Extra feature is also available, called Speed Kings Mag, where you can unlock information about the bikes included in the game.
In the end, the racing in Speed Kings is great, but really falls in both the Visual and Audio areas. With a little more work on bike models, a better AI for traffic and a total revamped soundtrack, this game could have been more than just another low quality arcade racer.
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